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I’ve been thinking about this upcoming new year and I get butterflies in my stomach. Literally. There are big things that are about to happen in our lives and business and it gives me all the feels. I decided to come up with a theme word for 2018 and I think I’ve decided on “fresh”.

I love to decorate with live plants in our own home. I think something about the fact that they’re living just brings a breath of fresh air. They must be cared for and tended to. If that doesn’t happen, they won’t flourish. But if they’re taken care of they will thrive and make the space feel fresh and alive. I want us to embrace that same feeling of freshness in our life and business this year.

This next year will be full of that.

For starters, this year might bring a fresh new endeavor. The very first new home construction that Hartman Homes has ever done is on the horizon for 2018. I mentioned in an earlier blog post that we purchased some land a couple months ago. We’ve been toying several different ideas around in our minds and right now the idea of subdividing that land and building homes on it is winning. I guess that would end up being a mini “Hartman Homes” neighborhood.

My second thought with “fresh” is with design. I’ve found that when you design multiple kitchens, bathrooms, exteriors, etc for a living it’s easy to find a comfortable spot in design and stick to it. But I also get tired and bored of “trends” really quickly. For instance, I’ve been getting tired of the farmhouse craze that has taken over the world. This year, I’m challenging myself to continuously think outside the box and have fresh ideas when designing new spaces. Our drive is to do quality work that is “different” enough to set us apart from others.

And lastly, fresh beginnings are on the way. I don’t want to say too much too soon, but a big change is about to happen in our business and we couldn’t be more excited and nervous all at the same time. When we started working this business three years ago we had a specific goal in mind. That goal was to have freedom. We wanted freedom with our time so we could enjoy this life together and with our children. We didn’t want to miss a minute. We wanted financial freedom so we would be able to bless others and exercise our spiritual gifts of giving. We also wanted freedom to dream and be able to pursue those dreams. I’ve been thinking about sharing a bit more of our beginning story on here and maybe someday I will.

During the really difficult, exhausting, overworked times we’ve maintained the mindset to “live like no one else, so that one day you can live like no one else”. Does that make sense? Basically, don’t get comfortable. Pray harder and dream bigger. Pursue those dreams that God placed in your heart tirelessly. Be the driving force to accomplish those dreams.

So going into 2018, “fresh” is going to be the word that we claim as we embark on this new year full of fresh things. Thanks for reading and I pray you all have a blessed new year!

Well, it’s that time again! The most exciting blog posts for me to write are the ones with before and after pictures of our flip projects. I call them “projects” because they’re just that. These houses are a hobby for us. We LOVE breathing new life into an old house and making it new and fresh again. Of course it’s a very expensive and labor intensive hobby, but it’s also quite lucrative when it’s all said and done. So with that in mind these projects are more of a financial investment than anything. It’s just fun for us; we enjoy it and we make money. Win/win situation!

Don’t let my scarce blog posts fool you. These flips aren’t finished overnight. These are long, hard renovations. Right now we’re averaging about a 4 month timeline from demo day to staging day. There are moments in this process where we feel like the end is not in sight. But, then the day comes and we look around and there’s nothing else to add to our list of “to do’s”. And then as soon as that day approaches, I’m already starting to plan the design for the next one.

The blog today is going to encompass the entire main living spaces that includes: living room, kitchen, dining room, foyer, and sunroom. For this house my initial inspiration was this: a clean, neutral slate with bold pops of color and pattern. This is tricky, you see. If that wasn’t executed perfectly the house could end up looking one of two extremes. It could end up feeling tacky and sporadic or it could be too far the other direction and feel boring and tasteless. At one point during the process I was nervous and was worried the kitchen was too simple with whites and blacks, but once it all came together and the bold pops of color joined in at the end, I was so relieved. In my opinion, it turned out perfect, but I’ll let you (and the buyers) be the judge. I’ll add paint colors and such at the end of the post in case anyone is interested.

Now, the before pictures:

Kitchen and Dining

Foyer

Living Room

Sunroom

Now, on to the after pictures!!! Aka…the exciting part! 😬😬😬

Kitchen and Dining After

If you look closely in the picture below you can see the texture on the leathered granite countertops. Such a neat, unexpected detail…

Foyer After

This space, friends, turned out so fabulous. Now, of course, if you’re a person who only likes whites and no color then I’m sure it’s not tickling your fancy. But, for me, since I love a little personality…I think it’s great!

This is what you see on your left as soon as you walk in the front door.

And below is your view looking straight forward as you walk in the front door.

Living Room After

This tile around the fireplace….let me tell you….it’s even better in person, if that’s even possible! It’s so vintage and fun and …just perfect!

Sunroom After

Well, how do you feel about my green ceiling in the sunroom?? I literally LOVE it!! I feel like the ceiling is a place that often gets forgotten when design takes place, but it’s such a huge place to make an impact.

Well, that’s all for now. This beauty goes on the market next Tuesday, so wish us luck! And, if you’re interested let us know and we can put you in touch with our realtor. The house is 2300 sq feet with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Asking price is $187,500.

We’ve got so much going on right now. Sometimes I think we’re a little bit wacko to tackle so much at one time…but alas, here we are!

First off we’re elbow deep into our current flip house. It’s been 3 weeks since demo day and we’ve had stuff going on almost each day. We had the new HVAC system with a gas furnace installed last week. This week the new rooms started being framed, we had a new roof put on, and the painting started. I’ve pretty much finished all of the designing and shopping for this house already. All of the bathroom fixtures, lighting, tile, and paint has been purchased. I am SO stoked for this house to start taking shape. I decided to go with a creamy White for the walls (exact color is Sherwin William’s Drift of Mist) and a medium gray (Sherwin William’s Dorian Gray) for all of the trim and interior doors. This house had fabulous, thick old trim and I wanted it to be a highlighted feature in the design of this house. Here’s a sneak peek of these colors.

As soon as the kitchen cabinets are finished being painted (in Sherwin William’s Alabaster), we will select the granite so it can be installed.

Once the bathrooms start coming together I’ll share details of those rooms. Here’s a hint, we’re creating an enormous master suite by turning the old den into the master bath!! Whoo, I can hardly wait! It’s going to be incredible!

My goal is to have most of my design work completed for this house before our baby makes his appearance in the next several weeks. This will allow me to have some necessary time off from this project after he is born.

The next project that we have going on is at our house. At this very moment our master bathroom is fully gutted and is about to receive a complete makeover. We’re also hoping to have this done before the baby comes, hopefully even in this next week. We’re rearranging the layout of the room, we’ve removed 2 closets and are adding a new walk in closet, adding all new tile, a new vanity, new shower, fresh paint, lighting, fixtures, etc. I’m SO excited!

My vision for this bathroom was for it to be a good mixture of several styles and not feel too “trendy”. I want it to be classy enough to last for a long, long time. The goal of the design is for it to feel clean and fresh with a hint of a historical, Charleston feel, a hint of farmhouse, and a hint of industrial. But not too much of any of those. I want it to feel fresh and airy. I’ll share a few individual pictures of some of the items going into this bathroom.

This gorgeous, classy tile is perfect! I knew it was the right one the moment I found it!! We will use it to cover the floor and the large soap box in the shower will be in this tile too!

This 72″ vanity is handmade from reclaimed wood and will have two above mount white, rectangle sinks on it.

These lights that we decided to use for above the vanity were the perfect mixture of industrial and farmhouse. We have three of these lights that will be to the left, middle, and right of the round, brass rimmed mirrors.

The tub/shower will be tiled in a large white subway tile with charcoal colored grout. The wall behind the toilet will also be tiled in this same subway tile. The rest of the walls are going to be painted in a bright, fresh…wait for it…green!! Yes, green! Imagine a creamy sage green, but a bit brighter. I’m so excited! Another feature I’m pretty excited about are these built in shelves next to the shower. They will look kinda like this.

One of the design staples that inspired this room came from a purchase we made during our recent trip to Charleston, SC. We love it there so much and wanted to incorporate some pieces from there into our new bathroom. I purchased two old prints (one of a painting of the battery and downtown area and one old map). I framed them in antique brass frames and they will be hung above the toilet on the tile wall. Can you get a sense yet of the feeling I’m trying to achieve in here?! Ahh, I can feel it and can’t wait to see it all come together!

Stay tuned for the before and after pictures as soon as this room is finished! I promise I’ll do a blog post.

In today’s blog post I’m going to share the reveal of our new baby boy’s nursery. As of today I’m 29 weeks pregnant, so he won’t be here for about another two months or so but we had about a month “break” in our home renovation schedule/timeline so we decided to use that opportunity to get the nursery accomplished and not leave it waiting until the last minute.

Before I start with the nursery pictures, I’ll give an update from Hartman Homes. In my last blog post I mentioned that we were about a week away from closing on the sale of our 3rd flip house. Well, praise the Lord, that went smoothly and we closed on it exactly as scheduled! And then a week later we closed on the house we bid on and purchased at auction in April. Exciting stuff!! Demo day for that house is scheduled for next Saturday, so stay tuned for an update soon after!

Alrighty, back to the nursery reveal. This room previously functioned as a guest bedroom. Due to the fact that all of Nathan’s family live at least 1000 miles away from us, that room was utilized quite frequently. However, we had no option but to turn it into a nursery to accommodate our newest arrival. Here is a picture of how this room previously looked.

So, my vision for this nursery was for it to be masculine and have a vintage feel to it, yet not have a specific theme. I’m not big on specific themed nurseries these days… like nautical, or a certain cartoon character, or monster themed, etc. I feel like that limits the room so much, and also doesn’t allow for it to grow with the child.

I chose to do navy blue walls and chose the Sherwin Williams color “Anchor’s Aweigh”. The room already had a bead board accent wall and we painted it in Sherwin William’s “Greek Villa” which is a creamy white.

One of the most exciting parts of this room is the fact that it cost me zero dollars! Let me explain. I sold almost everything out of this room either through Craigslist, FB marketplace, and at a yard sale that we had. I then used that money to furnish this nursery. We also reused a crib and changing table/dresser from the twins old nursery, which was free. The rocking chair, twin bed, and curtains we previously had as well. The rug was previously used by Hartman Interiors as a staging item, but I reclaimed it to belong in this nursery after I realized how well it matched.

Some people may think that it’s odd that we keep a twin bed in a baby’s nursery, but we have found that it to be a good idea. Any parent knows that when you have a baby, there’s a high probability that one of the two parents will end up staying in the nursery, even if only for a few hours every now and then. For us, we prefer to be comfortable when sleeping in the room with a sick or fussy baby. The answer for that is to provide a bed for the adult. The bedding on the twin bed used to be on my bed when I was a little girl and my mama had saved it and given it to me. The bed itself was owned by Nathan’s great grandmother years ago and is over 100 years old. I think it’s so cool how this room brings in history from both of our families.

The rest of the items I purchased specifically for the room and I’ll share the sources at the end of this post.

Also, we always choose to keep our name choice a secret until the baby is born, but these pictures give a hint. The initials are above the bed, but we won’t be sharing the actual name until he is born.

Hi friends! Today I’m going to share the before and after pictures of what we did to transform the foyer/entryway of our most recent flip house.

Before I start with that, let me tell you some exciting stuff! This house went under contract 18 hours after we listed it for sale! Do you hear me?!?! 18 hours!!! We could hardly believe it either. We accepted the first offer we had in writing, although we had been told we had another coming in that day and had 4 or 5 more showings (I can’t remember exactly) scheduled for that day and the next. Our closing date is in a week, so we’re prayerful that everything goes smoothly. Closing dates always make us nervous, and I don’t think that will ever change no matter how many homes we renovate and sell.

Exactly a week after we close on this home, we close on the purchase of our next. We already have demo day on the calendar for that project and can’t wait to get knee deep into renovations on it.

I have some exciting plans for the kitchen and baths for that house and it’s at this beginning point in the design process of a new project that I get so excited I can hardly contain myself. The very beginning of designing and shopping ranks at a similar high point as the end reveal of a project. Creating a vision and seeing that vision come to a reality are the BEST parts of this journey, in my eyes. Nathan would probably argue that demo day and payday are his favorite parts. 😂 We make a pretty great team!

We’ve also got some big things going on at home that I’m sure I’ll be blogging about soon. We’ve been working on the project of converting our guest room into a nursery for our little boy that is due in July. That room is almost done, so be looking for a post about that soon. We are also a few weeks away from totally destroying and redesigning our master bathroom. That room is BIG, but SO very outdated. My guess would be that it is original to how it was built in 1978. A renovation for that bathroom is long overdue, so we have finally decided to tackle that project and hopefully have it completed before the new baby gets here.

I know you’re probably all thinking that we are totally crazy and cram way too much stuff into our schedules. But, truth is, we genuinely enjoy being busy. This stuff is fun to us, and the reward is great in so many ways. I think that we would be bored if we weren’t juggling several projects at a time.

Alright…back to the foyer reveal. We nicknamed this room “the closet full of doors” because that is what it looked like when we bought it. This is the space that you walked into right when you came in the front door, and it was ugly! Upon entering, you were faced with the decision to choose one of 6 doorways (yes, SIX!) that led to other areas of the house. It was a really dark and closed off room to literally everything. So, of course we had to change that. I always try to design a home with this little thing in mind. I want to be able to take no more than two steps into the home from the main doorway and be able to see the majority of the main living spaces. To me, within two steps a buyer will either fall in love, or move on.

Let’s start with some before pictures.

This first picture is the view you had from standing on the front porch.

And here’s a close up of the closet at the end of the foyer.

Here are a couple pictures from some of our incredible demo day crew taking care of our “too many doors” problem.

Men love to destroy stuff… and I love coming by at the end of demo day and hearing their stories. We are so blessed to have a great group of friends and family who are always up for lending a hand on these work days (of course we pay them, but still…).

This room ended up having only one door way exiting off from it, and that one led to the master suite. The closet at the back of the foyer I turned into a built in hall tree/mud room area. When I designed it, I imagined book bags, shoes, purses and lunch boxes finding a home here in the mornings and then again in the evenings. It turned out incredible, just like I imagined in my mind. The seat on the top of the bench is butcher block that matches the kitchen countertops. And the background of the built in is bead board, which matches the background of the shelves in the living room. All of these little intentional design elements keep the house looking cohesive and the design looking purposeful and thought out.

We replaced the light fixture with a very inviting new one and continued the hardwoods from the rest of the house in this space. The walls were painted in Sherwin Williams Requisite Gray, and the trim was painted Sherwin Williams Alabaster. The finished product is one that I was immensely pleased with!

This next picture shows how much more large and open the home feels now that this room isn’t just a corridor of doorways. It’s such a pretty space now!

Well, friends…that’s all for today! Thanks for stopping by and reading. Stay tuned for all of the other posts coming soon that I mentioned earlier. I’m thinking the next post may be about our baby’s nursery. That room is already making me so happy, and it’s not even totally finished.

If you’ve been reading my blog posts at all for the past couple years, then it’s no secret that my husband and I “flip” houses. So, why do I hate that term? I’m not for sure that there’s even an actual definition for the term “flip house”, but in the day and age of HGTV everybody has an idea of what it is.

It may be different in various places around the country, but around our area flippers are notorious for certain things. Cutting out anything nice wherever possible to save a penny, painting the walls in the boring builder grade beige color, using basic builder grade light fixtures, tub inserts, cheap laminate or vinyl flooring, etc etc etc are a few of the things that typically come to mind.

While searching for granite for the kitchen of our last flip project the owner of the granite yard said, “Oh this is a flip house? Let me show you the granite most flippers use. It’s the cheapest we have here.” It was the most hideous granite they had. I would have never used it in any of our homes. But hearing those words spoke volumes that didn’t even need an explanation. By purchasing that granite, those flippers could advertise “granite counters in kitchen” in their real estate listing. Most other “flippers” would tell us we were crazy for purchasing granite that cost more than the basic quartz selections cost. But you know why we did that? Its not all about money to us.

We have a serious passion for what we do. It’s not just about the paycheck on closing day. Renovating these homes and bringing them back to life brings us more satisfaction than just how much our profit is at the end of the project. When I start designing a flip house I pick a personality for it. Like, what kind of voice would this house have if it could talk? What kind of mood do I want to portray through this design? Each home is different. In reality, very few things are alike in any of them. Making these decisions gives me little butterflies of excitement. And seeing it all come together in the end? I can’t even describe how exciting that is.

We don’t flip houses as quickly as some people do. Why? Because we add character and personality in things that will make us absolutely no return on our investment. I don’t know of any other flippers (well besides Tarek and Christina) that would sink money and time into something that literally increases the value of the house by zero dollars, but simply makes the home more attractive and custom. We just spent $355.00 on 3 sets of custom order shutters because we had to have the perfect ones in the perfect color for this home and the basic ones just didn’t evoke the same feeling. The basic ones at Lowe’s would have only cost $126.00 for the same 3 sets. Will we make that two hundred dollar price difference back when we sale the house? Nope. Does it matter to us? Nope. Why? Because we want people to know that if they ever purchase a home from us, they are getting a home that has had as much love poured into it by us as if we lived in it ourselves. The amount of time I spend designing these homes is worth thousands of dollars in design fees had they simply hired Hartman Interiors, and they’re getting that totally included.

We have a dream of eventually having such a positive name in our community that people are actually waiting for us to finish a home so they can potentially purchase it for themselves. That will never happen if we do things the way that most “flippers” do. It’s certainly not that we think we are any better than other house flippers, we’re just different. We simply choose to pour a little more of our heart and soul into these projects, even against the advice of others. We want buyers and potentially clients one day, to know that when Hartman Homes finishes a house it will be unlike any other in the neighborhood.

So, we’ll continue using the term “flipper” because that let’s people have a general idea of what we do, but now you know that what we do is actually so much more than that.

Hey everybody! I’m sorry for the super long hiatus from updating my blog. Now that we’ve made our official announcement I can share on here that the reason I have been so silent on here is because I’ve been incredibly sick the past few months. Why you may ask?? Because I’m pregnant with our 3rd child! We are super thrilled and could not be happier! We were a little surprised that it happened so quickly, but I think that the Lord likes to surprise us sometimes. We closed on our current flip house in November and found out we were pregnant about a week later. The nausea hit a week after that and boy it hit hard. Whew! The sickness left me laying on a couch and vomiting (sorry if that was TMI) while trying to take care of my toddler boys. Thank heavens for my precious husband who was more than willing to help me in the evenings and my sweet parents and grandparents who would come over and watch the boys for a bit while I just laid on the couch in my misery. Haha. But really. I’m not kidding. However, the first trimester is over this week and I’m starting to feel a bit more like a human these days. Hopefully the worst is over!

The flip house has been a bit slower going this time. This house needed ALOT. And most of the beginning of the renovation is all stuff that isn’t pretty to look at or photograph. It mostly just looks like a construction zone over there; but there are a few design elements starting to come together. This is also the first renovation we have done in the winter and the cold/wet weather has proven to slow us down a bit too.

Since I wasn’t able to do the individual room before pictures and the plans for those rooms, I’ll give a quick update with some before pictures and some current “in progress” pictures.
Here is a before of the front of the house.

And here is a picture I took today of the front of the house. The overgrown landscaping has been removed. The front porch has been removed and is waiting to be rebuilt. New windows have been installed, and new vinyl has been added (its difficult to see with the lighting in this picture, but the siding on the front porch area is a gray shaker style vinyl) The front door will be painted, shutters will be added, and fresh landscaping will be done before this place is ready to sell.

Here is a before picture of the side of the house.

And this picture was taken today from the same spot. New vinyl, new windows, new garage doors, and new gutters have all been finished in the last week. And please ignore the dumpster in the driveway, as I’ve mentioned this is still a construction zone.

Here is a before picture of the hall bathroom.

And here is a picture that I took today from the same spot. The space was totally demolished and currently has a new deep, soaking bathtub, new wood grain tile floor, and (not finished yet) glass and slate tile laid in a herringbone pattern around the shower. Of course we have a new vanity, new lighting, and all new hardware including faucet, tub spout, shower head, etc. that will eventually be installed. Please look past the fact that this is currently still a construction zone and nothing is cleaned or finished yet. It’s all still a work in progress. Just try to see my vision 😬.

Here’s a before picture of part of the {super ugly} master bathroom.

And here’s a picture of the current work that is being completed in there. Let me set the tone for what this bathroom will look like before I share the picture from today. This bathroom has been expanded by taking out a closet in the foyer and adding that space to the bathroom. That extra space has given us room to have two vanities in the bathroom now. We’ve picked those out and purchased them already and they are PERFECT. They’re white with open storage on the bottom and white carerra marble tops with stainless hardware. 😍 They’re beautiful. The walls will be painted a…hold your breath… navy blue color. Yep. That’s right. And it’s going to be perfect. The dark color will be balanced by the white vanities and the white tile floor, which I pictured below. The shower is gray tile with a large white vertical stripe and big white soap box. That’s one of the only things even decent looking enough to take a picture of, so I’ll share that picture too. All of the tile (shower and floor) will have a dark gray grout, which hasn’t been done yet. I hope you’re able to look at these pictures and see part of my vision. Even if you can’t see it now, hang with me, it will start coming together soon!

That’s it for now. I’ll share some before pictures and progress pictures of the kitchen, foyer, and living room soon. I’ll give a few hints though…custom built-in mudroom area/bench in the foyer, shiplap and custom shelving next to the fireplace, and some quartz in the kitchen with maybe a tin backsplash…although I’m not totally decided on that one.